


still learning to love

by karishma



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, The World Will Never Know, i tagged all the pairings because each one has a drabble?, starstuff!au, when will i learn to stop abusing italics?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:29:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1446904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karishma/pseuds/karishma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>humans are made of starstuff. the boys <em>are</em> starstuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	still learning to love

**Author's Note:**

> i've made it fairly obvious, but as a key:
> 
> stars-harry ★ moon-zayn ☽ sun-louis ☀ earth-liam ⊕ human-niall ☺
> 
> the title is from a great big world's 'say something' because it's sort of been the unofficial soundtrack of this entire thing
> 
> also, this story isn't true in this universe but here's to hoping it is in another one

☺★  
Niall and Harry  
(a human and the stars and the things that separate them)

_why do I go outside at one a.m._  
 _and search the stars as though I’d numbered them?_  
 _~gail white_

Niall lets his phone clatter to the floor and shudders as he steps out of the house. His entire body shakes with the force of it and he sinks to the wooden porch, bringing his knees up and resting his chin on top.

He counts his experiences with Sean, wonders what makes him the first person the family had notified and then drops his eyes for even thinking about it.

He remembers being four years old and on top of the world with Sean, paging through Sunday comics before they were able to read, nowhere near understanding political satire. They were nine when they joined the footie team, spending the nights before games tucked underneath duvets and whispering empty encouragements to each other, promising to make it big some day. When he had turned eleven, Sean had run his fingers through Niall’s hair, bleaching it without wearing gloves. At fifteen he sat on the couch and picked at his hangnails until they bled while Sean waited quietly until Niall turned, a _sometimes I don’t find girls–_ leaving his mouth quietly before Sean tugged him in and sat until he had stopped trembling. At seventeen, Niall met the boys and Sean is the only one he tells about the sloppy handjobs and whispered words of affection.

He had already felt guilty about skipping out on their graduation dance; he’d tied Sean’s tie for him and rebuttoned his shirt when Sean was too nervous to line the holes up correctly.

Now, though, the guilt pulses through him and settles loudly beneath his bones. His hands are shaking where they trap his knees together and his teeth chatter hotly.

It’s despairing, though, because no tears are coming, and he thinks about if had he been in the crash tonight how Sean would have reacted.

Somehow, he can’t visualize the scene, and he wonders if Sean was able to.

He focuses his eyes on the stars and wonders if one has been added since. He counts them, starts with the brightest one and works clockwise, marks the 47th one _Cully_.

He hears a car door close quietly and feels Harry sit behind him, wrapping an arm around him. Niall turns to tuck his nose into Harry’s neck when he says _oh my god, I’m so bad at this, oh my god, I can’t – oh my god I should have called Zayn oh my god oh my god._

Somehow, these lacklustre words sound more like _I love you, I’m here, I love you I love you I love you, we’re all here, I love you I love you._

It’s not okay, he’s not sure when he’s going to be okay, but.

It’s a start.

☽☺  
Zayn and Niall  
(the moon and a human and one without the other)

_my skin craves you most on sunny days  
~quietactions | tumblr_

Sometimes, Zayn will disappear. He needs time off, they all know this, but it’s a little harder on some of them than others.

It’s especially hard for Niall, makes him feel itchy out of his skin and out of place and off center.

Louis is exceptionally bright these days, trying to make Niall forget about the missing point on their circle.

He laughs loudly at Niall’s jokes, even louder at the ones that Niall can’t bring himself to laugh at. Occasionally (frequently), Niall will fade off, wondering where Zayn is, what book he is (undoubtedly) reading, what (who) he’s thinking about. He debates stupid things, _does Zayn get himself off during these weeks?_ and _how many books can Zayn read in one day?_ and _is Zayn wearing my jumper or Liam’s?_

When Niall gets like this, Louis will take over and capture his attention entirely, even if only for a few minutes. He’ll go down on Niall while he’s watching the Man U game, with Liam’s cheeks flushed red and Harry attempting to grind down on his thigh. Sometimes, he’ll grab Niall’s hand and take him grocery shopping with only ten pounds, trying to see how much junk food it’ll buy. Once, Louis had come home with a poor translation of _Oedipus Rex_ in his hands, and read it to him until Niall fell asleep draped over his thighs.

Even Louis can only last so long, though, and it isn’t very much time before Niall is thinking about Zayn while Louis is fisting him and finding himself irked at Louis’ too-loud laughter.

He makes himself a cup of tea and sinks into the overstuffed couch, pretending he can understand Shakespeare without Zayn reading it to him in his vanilla voice. He waits until he can no longer bear it, and then quietly books himself one train ticket to Bradford and two for the way back.

He spends the entire ride shifting in his seat and quietly humming along to James Morrison. _I’m still here, but it hasn’t been easy. I’m sure that you had your reasons (I’m scared)._

When Zayn opens the door, he melts forward, breathing in the silver shimmer that always follows Zayn and presses osculations into his shoulder.

The way Zayn touches him implies Niall is much too ordinary for any of them, but the way Zayn kisses him reminds Niall that he is more than all of the boys combined.

He is trying to find a balance.

☀☽  
Louis and Zayn  
(the sun and the moon and how they work together)

_tell me the story_  
 _about how the sun_  
 _loved the moon so much_  
 _he died every night_  
 _to let her breathe_  
 _~unknown_

Louis and Zayn probably shouldn’t work, is what Zayn thinks as he sits on the couch and watches Louis bouncing on his own seat cushion, playing the new FIFA ‘14. Niall comes and sits half on Louis’ lap, half in his plate of celery, and he incorporates Niall into his small nest with no questions. Harry is leaning over the back of the couch and running his fingers through Louis’ hair while Liam sits between Louis’ legs and rests back.

It should be strange, with Zayn all the way on the other side of the room, but just this morning he had woken up under a pile of knitted-together boys and he had spent the entire afternoon singing in the kitchen with them and.

They googled it, and Zayn is an introvert. He loves people, truly, but when he spends too much time with them some chemical _Dopamine_ overreacts in his brain and he feels absolutely exhausted and he needs time to sit by himself or else he’ll _cry._

So Louis takes over; he distracts the boys and blows the boys and jokes with the boys and simultaneously silently checks up on Zayn every few minutes to measure his mood. Just now he’d had his hand around Liam and his mouth on Harry and Niall rutting against his shin. He had thrown a load of laundry in the wash while the rest of them napped afterwards and then gone to make tea for all of them, a squirt of orange in Zayn’s just like he likes, saying _I feel like a proper housewife with you all, Zayn’s my husband and the rest of you lot are my daughters._

Zayn gets tired just thinking about it.

However, as soon as the sun sets in the sky, so does Louis’ energy and he just kind of collapses in on himself. Zayn, though, is ready to pick Louis up and carry him to bed, while Harry and Liam and Niall quietly get ready to sleep as well. Zayn pulls off Louis’ joggers and sets up his bookbag for tomorrow’s classes, tucking everyone in and making Harry a cup of tea and scritching Liam’s hair and reading Yeats’ poems to Niall when he’s feeling homesick.

It’s a nice balance they have, Zayn thinks after all the boys are sleeping. He stays up for a few hours until Louis wakes and stumbles out of bed, tugging at the ends of his fluffy hair as he staggers over to Zayn’s desk and shuts his laptop, dragging Zayn out of his chair and back to bed.

Zayn settles into the crook of Louis’ elbow, Niall’s knee digging into his back and he pushes his grin into the pillow until Louis tugs his chin up and kisses him softly before murmuring a quiet _sleep_ , and slowing his breath. Zayn falls asleep with Harry’s fingers tickling his ribs and Liam’s permafrost toes on his ankle.

★⊕  
Harry and Liam  
(the stars and the earth and colliding)

_and a softness came from the starlight_  
 _and filled me full to the bone._  
 _~w.b. yeats_

Liam wakes up one day and he’s halfway through year 8 and he doesn’t remember any of it happening. He’s repeatedly hitting the snooze button on his brown plastic alarm clock from when his father was in uni, sleepily asking his dad for _five more minutes, please, I promise I’ll be fine, turn off the light, close the door_ , except then his dad comes back screaming _it’s 7:25 you won’t make it, I’m leaving without you_ , and his mom offers to let him stay home, but he’s got a Spanish test first period, so despite all of it he drags himself out of bed.

His joints are creaking and snapping in a way that’s probably unhealthy for such a young boy, and his back aches in ways he’s never imagined. His eyes are so dry he could break eight bones and not shed a tear, and his head is pounding steadily and matches his erratic heartbeat (his only functioning organ), and he runs to the bathroom as his stomach flips and he feels his dinner coming back up.

This is the day he decides that none of this is worth it. He goes to school wearing glasses for the first time in _years_ , digging them out from the bottom his pants drawer and skips wearing concealer on his bags and bruises. He wears sweatpants, because he’s had twelve too many pairs of chinos come home ripped and stained, and runs his fingers through his hair instead of straightening it. 

His feet are too big, his fingers are too thick. His hair waves over his broad eyebrows that line his mud brown eyes. He trips over three comic books on his way out the door, but he’d stopped wincing when he hears them rip and bend months ago. His dad plays Drake on the way to school, and when he’s walking across the football field he’s quietly rapping it, _I want a lot of things to go my way, but as of late a lot of shit’s been going sideways._

He pretends to be texting someone on his way into the school, anything to avoid the way people smile a little too hard at him, the way they turn away under the guise of reaching into their lockers for something, because it’s easier to ignore him than try to make friends with the boy that has a nose much too big for his face and a freckle the shape of a pissed Australia on his neck.

He fails the Spanish test, of course he does, but in Maths this boy, _Harry_ , smiles at him with dimples deep enough to drink orange juice out of and crushed cherry lips. Liam shrugs back, because he’s not too sure what’s going on but this kind of thing has happened before and it ends with Liam on the floor, mentally and physically and emotionally, and loads of people laughing.

Except, the next day when Liam goes to Maths, the boy smiles at him again like whipped cream and strawberry sauce. Liam almost, _almost_ , smiles back, and then thinks better of it, responding with another small shrug.

Every day afterwards, Harry smiles at Liam without fail, and it quickly (terrifyingly) becomes the highlight of Liam's day.

So, then, one day Liam walks into Maths and Harry is kind of, sitting? And listening to music, supposedly, with his headphones in. He doesn't look up when Liam walks in and doesn't smile when Liam sits down. His eyes are closed and his lips are turned down and it – Liam never wants to see that look on his face ever again.

After class lets out, Liam taps Harry on the shoulder quietly, and he turns around in surprise.

Harry is even prettier up close, Liam discovers, which is why he stutters when he asks, "Are you– you seemed a little off to– this morning?"

Harry laughs loudly and unabashedly, and Liam convinces himself that fairies are being born in the bubbles of his laugh somewhere far away. It's also a little bit of a surprise, considering how down Harry'd seemed at the start of the class.

"Oh, no I just was listening to this one song, have you heard it? By that one guy and Aguilera? Say Something? It just– do you want to come over after school? I can show it to you. It's one of those songs that makes you just think and, like, cry or something."

Liam goes to Harry’s house that afternoon. And the next, and the next, and the next under multiple pretenses: maths tests to study for, new bands to be introduced to, cookie recipes to try. Mostly, though, it’s just Liam and Harry lying on a rug in Harry’s bedroom with A Great Big World on repeat, _I will swallow my pride (you’re the one that I love)._

When Harry first kisses Liam he leans into it for about half a second before scooting away and mumbling a _sorry, sorry I need to– sorry_ and running home.

He cries for over an hour, _(I’m giving up on you)_ , because he thought maybe Harry was different.

He thinks about whether or not he kissed back long enough for it to be made into a funny Vine that Harry has undoubtedly posted online already.

Later, Harry knocks on his door until his knuckles start bleeding and he starts pleading and Liam opens the door and starts to say, _did I not kiss you back long eno–_ , but Harry cuts him off by pulling him outside and pressing him against the side of his house. He presses his lips back against Liam’s, harshly at first and then softer.

When Harry pulls back, he says, “You know how stars are, like, awesome, but then they burn and you remember they’re not actually all that strong? And then, sometimes, they crash and fall to Earth and– that’s what this feels like.”

It won’t be the first time Harry does something that takes Liam by surprise; it won’t be the last time Liam thinks Harry is chicaning him.

It is the first day he feels his bruises start to heal and his bones start to lose weight. His shoulders drop and his chin lifts and it’s a new dawn.

★☽  
Harry and Zayn  
(the stars and the moon and commonalities)

 _a lot of other girls shine brighter_  
 _and you deserve the sun_  
 _~praises | tumblr_

Some days Harry looks at Zayn and is just overwhelmed with this feeling of, like, _how did we get so lucky_ and _how did he get so pretty_ and _how did I get here._

.

The differences between Harry and Zayn are physical, sure. Their hair is not the same colour and wherever Harry is shiny bright and sharp, Zayn is round and baby skin soft. Zayn’s eyes stick deep and Harry’s are surface only, at first. Harry leaves a little bit of himself wherever he goes, whomever he talks to while Zayn will affix to the same person for years and years (and years).

The thing is, Harry sees bits of himself everywhere and anywhere. The wall outside the library is the same colour as his eyes, there is a girl in his Lit class with a Pink Floyd tee shirt, there is a whole mob of twenty-somethings that like Man U as much as he does.

And then he’s never (ever) seen anything quite like Zayn Malik. Harry has never met anyone so shy in mannerism, but so flagrant in appearance, never met anyone who has nearly as high a quiff or a cheese knife quite as sharp as his cheekbones.

So then, most days, Harry doesn’t actually understand why Zayn looks at him as if he’s brighter than the fucking _sun_ , or how he spends hours listening to Harry try to number the ways the universe scares him, or the way he rubs his thumb over Harry’s fourth knuckle like he’s waiting for something that’s impossibly _more._

The thing is, Zayn deserves everything this world has to offer (and more and more and more). Harry can serve up an increasingly tinier portion of this Earth, and sometimes he remembers that Zayn should have the real sun and not a distressingly fumbly replica.

And one day Harry is sitting in the kitchen watching his biscotti bake and sipping a mug of Tetley. He’s leaning back against the counter and hears Zayn’s socked feet padding across the tile before his mug is taken from his hands. Zayn tastes the tea, wrinkles his nose same as always when it doesn’t taste of melted sugar, and then pops onto his toes to dig his chin into Harry’s shoulder. He brings his hands up to scritch at where Harry’s hair meets his neck and presses _you know I love you loads, yeah?_ into his skin.

Harry shrugs, because _yeah_ , but also _why?_.

Zayn leans back and tips his head up so he can make eye contact. He huffs a small laugh and says, “Thought as much. Anyway, I do. Love you, that is. Like, _loads_. Sometimes feel like crawling out of my skin and, I dunno, _exploding_ , because you make me feel so much.”

Harry tips his chin down and lets Zayn’s gaze colour his cheeks burgundy. “I– Well, yes, but anyone can make you feel something? And– I. Like. You’re really a whole lot, Zayn, and sometimes I don’t know why or how or when you ended up here, but somehow there was something that made you want to stay. And. That’s _insane._ ”

Zayn says _you. You you you youyouyouyouyou_ into Harry’s lips until his mouth is a little bit busy and it just sounds like a moan, honestly. Harry’s elbow knocks into the tea mug and Zayn catches it without looking, without even breaking the kiss really, and that’s, summarily, the whole relationship.

“Yeah, sure, anyone can make me feel something. But not just anyone can make me feel _this_ ,” Zayn says, and Harry looks at his ruddied cheeks and wilted quiff and it’s always, _always_ a new experience to kiss Zayn, no matter how many times he’s done it before.

He can see himself on Zayn’s face, actually. Can see parts of himself in Zayn’s chapped lips and harsh breaths and shaky hands.

This is new and not altogether unwelcome.

⊕☀  
Liam and Louis  
(the earth and the sun and the [not so] big bang)

_even/ after/ all this time/ the sun never says/ to the earth/_  
 _“you owe me.”/ look/ what happens/ with a love like that./_  
 _it lights the/ whole/ sky._  
 _~unknown_

“Baby you light up my world like nobody else,” Liam serenades across the kitchen. He looks positively _radiant_ , the sun laughing through the windows and dancing across his shoulders, singing into Liam’s mouth and stumbling out through his eyes.

It takes Louis entirely by surprise; some days he can hardly recognize the same seventeen year old boy he had sat across from on the underground all those years ago.

Liam’s eyes haven’t changed colour, but they shine with a new brilliance that rivals Louis’ entire personality. The only time Louis ever sees Liam’s lips chapped anymore is when his cheeks are rouged as well and his hair is nearly as wild as it was that first day on the train, rain hitting the windows and almost disguising the shadowed tears running across his face.

It’s taken years of work to build Liam up to this point, though. Months of tip-toeing across boundaries and crashing into carefully manufactured walls. The first time Louis had talked to Liam, he had sat in the seat next to him on the tube and he can still feel Liam’s flinch away, the shape of the fist that Liam’s fingers had unconsciously curled into.

Later, he found out that Harry had laid down the groundwork before Louis had even met Liam, had already pressed kisses into his skin and tattooed the jagged corners of Liam’s body with _I love you_ ’s and _I want you_ ’s and _I need you_ ’s.

But that first day, all Louis could see was a crumbling boy with only paper thin skin and saltwater glue holding him together.

He had almost opened his mouth to say something, maybe _how are you_ , maybe _are you okay_ , maybe nothing at all, but Liam had stood up quickly, his backpack almost tipping him over, and gotten off at the next stop. Louis watched him step out of their compartment and onto the next one.

It had taken a few weeks, but eventually Liam didn’t run off when Louis sat next to him and the first thing that Liam had said to Louis was _what do you want from me?_ and Louis hadn’t really understood, so he had shrugged and said _nothing, I don’t think_ and from there on out the fall was easy.

Even now, with Liam singing to him across the kitchen, Louis gets the same muddled feeling, but more because he doesn’t really remember how he ended up here, with this beautiful, _beautiful_ boy smiling his way while there is milk boiling on the stove and a pie in the oven. Here, with three other boys that smile just as affectionately, here in a flat with two bedrooms and only one with a fully functional bed, here where sometimes the air is so thick he almost feels like he can’t move.

That’s alright though, because his boys, are always moving for him, in a set of never ending circles that act like a really complicated ballet none of them could actually execute and that’s not so bad, not when he gets to feel like this.

So, the way Liam is looking at him right now, _when you smile at the ground it ain’t hard to tell_ spilling from his mouth, like he can’t believe Louis doesn’t ask for anything in return as compensation for all the thousands of days of smiles that Louis has granted him, like he can’t really think of anything that would even begin to recoup for it all.

Louis doesn’t ask for anything though, hasn’t ever needed to really, because _this_ , with Liam crossing the wood flooring to gather Louis in his arms and sway him gently, humming along to the next song on his playlist, _I can hold the weight of worlds, if that’s what you need_.

Louis shakes his head, because he’s never needed anything except for Liam’s arms and his boys in the next room, and they only let go when the milk starts to burn.

☀☺  
Louis and Niall  
(the sun and a human and inhibitions)

_laughter is the sun that drives winter_  
 _from the human face._  
 _~victor hugo_

Louis is fucking _hilarious_.

It’s the first thing Niall thought when he met Louis and it’s the first thing Niall thinks whenever he sees Louis. In the mornings he watches Louis breathing, feet tangled with Liam’s and his toes splayed and it’s the funniest thing he’ll ever see, no matter how many days he gets to wake up pressed into Louis’ chest. He laughs until Louis wakes up and says, “fuck off or make me breakfast; don’t be a dick,” and that’s funny too, so yeah. He’s started his days laughing until he cries ever since he met Louis.

The thing is, though, that there have been times in Niall’s life when he’s felt like he could never laugh again.

A week after Sean’s death, Niall’s shaking hands had dialled Sean’s number 54 times just to hear the recorded ‘Hello, you’ve reached _Sean Cullen_ ’s voicemail. Please leave your name and number after the tone. _Beeeep_.’

It had been Louis that found Niall on his bed, breathing _I’ll just try one more time, maybe if I try one more time you’ll pick up_ down the receiver, tears sliding down his cheeks like shards of glass.

Louis had ended the call quietly, tucked the comforter up and around Niall and then gotten in bed with him. He remembers, still, how he had woken up a few hours later with Louis sitting on the wood floor of his bedroom with a bottle of wine.

“We’re going to drink this straight from the bottle and cry and have quarter-life crises and when we wake up tomorrow morning we probably won’t feel any better but it sure as hell can’t feel any worse than this,” he had said.

Niall awakes with a killer headache and three miserably-typed texts sent to one Cully ( _i mis u os muchh tht sumdysa i thnkik the eworld migt stop spinnin, i fel e cold ev n when it’d 34 degrres out_ , and, clearly sent from Louis, _youu absolut arsecake do yuo evne know whaat yyou’ve don e?/_ ).

Somewhere over London, the sun rises.

★☀  
Harry and Louis  
(the stars and the sun and learning to be weak)

_even the best fall down sometimes_  
 _even the stars refuse to shine_  
 _~howie day_

Harry doesn’t get sick, on principle.

Niall will get sniffles, Louis will fall dramatically sick, Zayn needs medicine if he forgets to sleep for too many days in a row, Liam works himself out of health, but Harry.

Harry doesn’t get sick.

Which explains why he’s locked himself in the bathroom, damp curls up and away from his forehead with a headband, retching into the toilet bowl.

He’s not sick, it’s probably the fajitas he made last night; maybe he bought bad chicken?

He must pass out in the toilets, because the next thing he remembers is waking up in bed with Louis pushing Harry’s fringe off of his face, pressing a kiss into his cheek. “It’s okay, you know. To let yourself be weak?”

Harry grumbles because yes, he _knows_ , but that doesn’t make it any less painless or any more fun. He’s so familiar with letting himself be vulnerable that it seems almost inane that _Louis_ of all people would be reassuring him of this. It’s just, none of the other boys are allowed in the room because five people in one flat that like to kiss frequently is like every scientist’s dream petri dish, but it _sucks_ because he’d like to _be_ sucked but he can’t because he’s fucking sick.

Louis’ quiet for a moment before he continues. “You need to let people take care of you, babe. You’re going to run yourself into the ground otherwise. This happens to everybody, doll. You can’t shine so brightly all of the time.”

It’s only a few days later when Harry is still feeling terribly poorly that Louis decides to take him to see Dr. Rosenburg.

He kicks and screams all the way to the office because he’s _fine, seriously, I’ll be okay just give me the rest of the week to heal up_ , but when they finally, _finally_ make the appointment the doctor says that Harry has just caught a bad case of the stomach flu, only made worse by Harry’s initial refusal to accept he was sick.

When he gets home, though, the boys ( _his_ boys) are sitting on the couch with a plate piled with unbuttered toast and a tea tray.

Sure, getting sick sucks. He has to stay away from Liam’s arms and Zayn’s eyes and Niall’s laugh, but he doesn’t mind so much when he’s sitting with Louis on the loveseat watching _She’s the Man_ and the other three curled together on the couch across from him.

He digs his mouth into the blanket and tries not to think about how he wouldn’t trade any of this, not the flu or bland toast or cherry-flavoured cough syrup, for anything in the world.

⊕☺  
Liam and Niall  
(the earth and a human and reflections)

_it was not enough to see the stars._  
 _eventually we felt we had to own them._  
 _~hugh macleod_

It’s late and all the boys have fallen asleep while watching _Heathers_ , so Niall mutes the TV and settles against the back of the couch. He’s been playing this new game, _Flappy Bird_ , and his high score is currently sitting at a four. It’s only restarted six times when he feels Liam shift against his side, nosing his ear and grumbling _shut it off, ‘s too bright_ right into his ear. Niall jerks a laugh and shuts off his phone, moving his arm to rest around Liam’s shoulders.

“Sorry, sorry. Do you want to move to the bed?” He asks, because surely sleeping propped against someone’s shoulder on a couch can’t be too comfortable.

Liam shakes his head though, “maybe later, when I’m awake enough to carry the boys,” leaving his lips because, yeah, Niall wouldn’t really be able to carry any one of them feasibly.

“Do you ever think about,” Liam says, turning his body sideways and repositioning Louis’ head on his lap, “like, how we even got here?”

“What, on Earth?” Niall says, because it’s late and he’s tired and also a little bit of an idiot.

Liam shakes his head and his body rocks with quiet laughter. “Nah, like. Here on a couch with _so many_ beautiful boys? Like, what did we ever do that made us so incredibly lucky,” he sighs, leaning into Niall’s body.

“Rumor has it, you’ve paid more than your fair share of dues,” Niall says, because Liam still has night terrors sometimes, still is painfully self aware in large groups, will move to cover himself up when he’s flushed and writhing underneath one of his boys.

Liam shrugs. “Rumor has it so have you,” because he had lost Sean right at the very start of this all, less than a year after he met them. He’s so unbelievably lucky to have had them all with him during that time, would’ve probably woken up paler than their white duvet for _years_ had Louis not clung to him in his sleep every night, had Zayn not bought an electric kettle for their bedroom. “I remember with Harry I saw him that first day and I just grabbed on and couldn’t let go. It wasn’t even that much, you know? He gave me a smile and I wanted, like. I wanted it _all_.”

“Gave it to you too, innit?” He laughs loudly then, can’t seem to keep it in, even when he feels Zayn slap his cheek drowsily. “When you give a Liam a smile, he’ll want a blowjob.”

Niall can feel Liam flush, his body turning hot. “Nah, mate. Reckon Harry gave you a blowie before he gave me one even, and I’d known him for at least a year and a half.”

“I’m Irish, babe. ‘s how it goes.” Niall yawns.

“Is that even a thing? ’m certain that’s not a thing.” Liam moves again, laying himself down across Niall. “Just gonna take a quick nap, then I’ll move us all,” he says, settling.

“That’s what you always say,” Niall responds.

⊕☽  
Liam and Zayn  
(the earth and the moon and this is how it starts)

_as if you were on fire from within._  
 _the moon lives in the lining of your skin._  
 _~pablo neruda_

Liam and Zayn sink into each other rapidly and seamlessly and no one has any time to adjust. One day Louis is bringing Zayn to meet them at Dose Espresso and the next he can literally _see_ himself on Liam. Can distinguish the way Liam physically shines, can smell Zayn’s Gucci by Gucci on him, can feel the stubble he’s been inspired to grow out.

Zayn actually fits all of them harmoniously, melts into all their nooks like chocolate on graham crackers. Zayn’s not sure what he did before he met the boys, can’t remember a time when he didn’t need Louis brashly proclaiming his affection on the streets or Niall laughing so hard they have to stop walking so he can calm down.

But the way Liam fits Zayn is unbelievable, entirely unheard of.

A few weeks after Zayn moves from Bradford, he starts working at Nate’s Grocery with Liam. Three days into the job and he’s stocking apples in Produce when he finds one that has Sharpie scrawled on the thin skin.

_produce is the worsttt becuse the aples all role of – L_

He can feel a pink flush crawling up his cheeks and he looks around quickly before sneaking his phone out of his pocket and taking a picture. He tosses the apple in the bin and then continues stocking fruit.

The next day he’s checking the squash shipment before he puts them out on display when he notices that one squash is sitting outside of the plastic wrap.

_hahha i dont evn lik squish but i like u – L_

And that’s. Okay.

His hands are not shaking. They are _not_ , but it takes him seven tries to take a clear photo of it anyway.

When he goes to work on Friday he brings a Sharpie and sneaks a pear out from where Liam is trying to stack them on a counter.

_coffee sometime? you’ve got really nice hair. – Z_

As far as proposals go, it’s not much, but the look Liam gives him when he reads the message is a _lot_.

It’s then that Liam explains the boys to him; he talks in brushstrokes about _love_ and _strange_ and _it really, really works and I think you could be such a Good Thing_.

Next Monday when Zayn comes into work, his manager tells him to stock bananas. He finds a bunch of four bananas that have a phone number penned into each one and a sticky note at the top that reads _we’re all down if you are._

Later, when he starts a group message and texts _so, where do we start?_ , he feels as if they could illuminate the entire fucking universe.

Much, much later, he learns they can.

**Author's Note:**

> i know the format of this was really strange so it would be awesome if you could tell me how you found it?
> 
> also, you can come yell at me on tumblr @ sinabit about how i haven't posted anything in _months_.


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